All-purposes personalzine of Samuel Edward Konkin III (aka SEK3). It was not available by subscription, only in APAs (volume 1 was published in apa-nu) and in exchange. Started before December 25, 1975 and ended not before October, 1980. Total list or even number of issues remains unknown yet. Consisted mostly of fannish material and comments, but covered variety of topics from politics to D&D. According to SEK3 Clear Ether!, was his publication for personal gratification for those who are gratified similarly. It was not meant as an ideological publication, but his philosophy was inseparable from his way of thinking so it showed through. Nevertheless, CE! was his creative, aesthetic, artistic outlet - and unabashedly fannish, faanish… and sercon when he's out to to pick a good fight.

According to SEK3 himself (see CE! vol. 4 No. 1 and vol. 2 No. 10), CE! was named after the expression of heroic friendship in Doc Smith's Lensman series; it sums up what Ayn Rand would call SEK3's "sense of life." (His commentzine …And on Green was the Lensman's way of saying "of course" or "on target" from "All clear and on green, Kimball!") And if you don't know what a sense of life is, read Ayn Rand's Romantic Manifesto.

Other known apazines by SEK3 were Tarzine of the APAs (APA-L), The Competitive Quest (Alarums & Excursions), Frefanac! (Frefanzine) and starting with volume 2 Clear Ether! was supposed to combine them all so it started being published in variety of APAs instead of one (later Tarzine of the APAs sometimes accompanied CE as a commentzine as well as The Competitive Quest sometimes appeared in A&E). Also, approximately starting with volume 4 was accompanied with commentzine …And on Green. It's not enough information at the moment, but volume 2 of Tarzine of the APAs was probably published in Scapa Flow (starting in 1980. Typewritten issue vol. 2 No. 2 tells that it's a "commentzine for Scapa Flow") and volume 3 was revived in APA-L as "more-or-less weekly" contribution (there were at least eight issues in 1987).

According to Marc S. Glasser (the official collator of APA-NYU), SEK3 was the co-founder of APA-NYU back in 1974, and he contributed to it on and off until his death in 2004. There were times when he was in it almost every month, and then there were years when they didn't hear from him at all. Probably it depended on what else was happening in his life—when he was getting regular work at a printing shop, it was a lot easier for him to typeset and print zines to contribute. (It was usually titled Clear Ether!, but he used …And On Green! occasionally for zines made up entirely of comments on other people's zines. Marc doesn't think he ever used Tarzine of the APAs in APA-NYU.) Marc also confirms the meaning of names above and adds that Tarzine of the APAs was a pun on Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Starting with volume 4, Konkin stopped the practice of announcing on the first page of Clear Ether! which APA (and which mailing) current issue was primarily intended for and where to look for the next issue, it makes it harder to systematize available scans.

"With this issue, Volume Four of Clear Ether! ends. It's gone through various incarnations and will reincarnate at least once more. But volume 5 will be limited to comments to APA-NYU, of considerably less general interest than the five issues in this volume."

This is a fanzine page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was published, how many issues it has had, (including adding a partial or complete checklist), its contents (including perhaps a ToC listing), its size and repro method, regular columnists, its impact on fandom, or by adding scans or links to scans.